LAMP is designed to advance real estate cadaster creation, improve registration of services, strengthen capacity to support the planning sector, and further develop the permitting process in Montenegro.Since... Show More + the project’s inception in 2008, more than 9,000 people have participated in debates on spatial and urban planning, helping to ensure that the concerns of all stakeholders are taken into consideration during project implementation and that the outcomes are as inclusive as possible. These efforts are helping to decrease illegal construction and ensure that buildings – especially public ones – are built according to code, thereby better serving the needs of everyone.“I see improvement – both in the situation in general, as well as in people’s awareness,” said Dejan, following a recent meeting of the working group. “Through direct communication among the networks of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), almost half of the people with disabilities in Cetinje had a voice in the plannin Show Less -

The idea was simple enough: give money to a mother to encourage her to send her children to school and to the health center. That simple idea, which began in the 1990s, has now become a nationwide program... Show More + in Mexico, benefitting 5.8 million families – a fourth of the country’s total population.The initiative improved school enrolment and nutrition rates of children in the country. More than 50 countries have replicated the model so far.Previously known as Oportunidades, the program recently expanded its scope: not only is it now called Prospera, but it is also promoting beneficiaries’ access to higher education and formal employment. Additionally, Prospera is facilitating access to financial services, thereby ensuring increased social inclusion of the country’s poorest citizens.Francesca Lamanna, a social protection specialist at the World Bank, explained how the program works.What are the main achievements of the Oportunidades Program (now Prospera)?There are many achievements covering Show Less -

New Life in Barren LandsEach year, under the public works program, PSNP beneficiaries implement approximately 48,000 public works projects, many of which contribute to a community-based watershed development... Show More + initiative. This approach has enabled communities to breathe new life into barren lands, leading to increased vegetation cover and restoration of the water tables.A decade of watershed development work has revived the supply of ground water enough to enable communities to steer public works programs increasingly toward more livelihood-based projects such as land reclamation, improved livestock management, and small-scale irrigation schemes for both food production and income generation. This has resulted in a significant increase in the area of cultivable land, higher crop yields, and improved livelihoods.A PSNP client household on average receives a yearly payment of US $137 spread over six months, which helps them survive the ‘hungry seasons.’ The payments help parents send their Show Less -

While poverty levels have always been high in the country, the situation has taken a turn for the worse over the last several years. Natural disasters in some regions combined with socioeconomic effects... Show More + of the 2009 to 2013 political crisis are the predominant causes. With health and nutritional needs becoming increasingly acute, it is clear that the few social protection programs that currently exist are grossly insufficient to support the population.In Madagascar, public expenditures for social protection remain extremely low, even when compared to African countries. For instance, spending for social protection in nine other African countries represented 4.4% of GDP in 2007, with a rising trend over the last decade. This figure was only 1.5% in 2008 in Madagascar, one year before the political crisis which rolled back public expenditures for social protection to 1.1% in 2010 (In absolute numbers, expenditures for social protection decreased from USD 145 million in 2008 to USD 56 milli Show Less -

New lawsBesides Brazil, another Latin American country that has managed to gradually reduce its child labor rates is Mexico (where 870,000 continue to work).Oportunidades, the Mexican version of Bolsa... Show More + Familia, reduced the number of children (ages 12 to 15) who work by 8%. This statistic is from the 2012 Child Labor in Mexico report, compiled by the World Bank, UNICEF and the International Labor Organization.Mexico’s experience demonstrates that it is crucial to complement the program with specific measures to fight child labor. For example, when it implemented a labor law reform in November 2012, Mexico committed to developing more initiatives to this end.In Uruguay, where 90,000 children work, especially in rural areas, parents do not perceive that labor as harmful. A Congressional study found that: “although laws exist on the subject, society makes no effort to uphold them because work continues to be part of the culture of integration into the world of productive adults.”For t Show Less -

Improving information management of programs and beneficiariesIn 2012, the World Bank and the Government of Timor-Leste signed an agreement to support the government’s effort to improve its information... Show More + management system under the Social Protection Administration Project, with an estimated cost of $2 million.Through the project, MSS will develop a management information system that will improve the implementation of the social programs by integrating the databases of three existing cash transfer programs.“In the future, the new management information system will gradually improve the capacity of the ministry to implement core cash transfer programs in a reliable and more transparent manner by standardizing information management and strengthening management capacity,” said Bolormaa Amgaabazar, the World Bank Country Representative.The MSS is currently developing a comprehensive management information system covering main social assistance programs aimed to effectively manage and maintai Show Less -

Among the many important topics discussed at the workshop, participants heard about the need to develop strategies and action plans in order to put in place comprehensive EFC control systems. Approaches... Show More + being implemented in the UK and Romania were cited as good examples.A strategic approach is necessary because it puts the focus on reducing EFC in high-budget, risk-prone programs such as disability pensions, income-replacement programs and means-tested benefits.Measures should also be put in place to cover both prevention of EFC and detection of EFC. Modern information and communications technologies (ICT), such as data matching, can play an important role here, along with intelligence-based reviews or inspections, to identify overpayments in the system in a cost-effective manner.The overall objective of any social protection system is to offer adequate assistance and protection to the elderly, the unemployed, the poor and the most vulnerable in societies – fighting poverty and promoti Show Less -

The country also faces the challenge of a skills gap between available jobs and education opportunities. Employers complain about not being able to fill jobs with skilled applicants, while certain sectors... Show More + report not having enough graduates in those fields.Higher economic growth also needs more and better infrastructure. Total infrastructure investment has remained at only 3-4 percent of GDP over the past decade. This is far below the rates of above 7% of GDP before the 1997 Asian financial crisis, and the 10% and 7.5% spent by China and India, respectively.Zaldy Mista, head of the Indonesia Logistics Association, highlights the bottleneck at the country’s main sea port of Tanjung Priok, which handles two-thirds of Indonesia’s entire international trade.“Four to five years ago, one of our trucks travelling from the industry center of Cikarang, in the outskirts of Jakarta, to the main sea port of Tanjung Priok and back could get three trips a day. But now it’s just about one trip a day,” Show Less -

Employment and self-confidenceOnce hired, the young people are given the title “brigadier de salubrité” (sanitation warden). All young people between 18 and 30 years of age can apply. To assure fairness,... Show More + beneficiaries are chosen through a public lottery. The program is so popular that some young people admit to praying all night that they will be among those selected.As Côte d’Ivoire gets back on its feet following a decade of political, economic, and social unrest, tackling youth employment has become a priority,” says Hamoud Abdel Wedoud Kamil, a World Bank’s Senior Education Specialist and task leader of the PEJEDEC project. “One of the key objectives of this program is to provide participants new skills that would make them more employable, increase their earning potential and, in some cases, give them the resources to start their own businesses,” he adds. In addition to guaranteeing six consecutive months of income to those hired — who receive monthly wages amounting to Show Less -

Anti-Poverty Information PlatformPoverty reduction experts throughout the world will be connected through an online platform in three languages, which will serve to disseminate key initiatives in this... Show More + area. It will also allow for the exchange of ideas and knowledge, in real time, between policymakers and those who implement social programs throughout the world.Mundo Sem Pobreza (https://www.wwp.org.br/en) will also serve as a repository for information and a place where the general public can join in this large-scale conversation about one of the most obstinate problems of the 21st century.“I think it offers an opportunity to accelerate and expand lessons learned in social policy application in Brazil,” said World Bank Country Director for Brazil Deborah Wetzel,.The Institute for Applied Economic Research, the Ministry of Social Development and Hunger Alleviation, the International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG) of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), a Show Less -

GABORONE, January 28, 2014 - The World Bank hosted the launch of the Social Protection Assessment report that was prepared jointly with Botswana Institute for Development Policy Analysis (BIDPA) and in... Show More + close collaboration with the Government of Botswana. The 2013 assessment concentrated on social assistance programs and aimed to provide information to contribute to Botswana’s future social protection and labor strategy and policies to achieve the goals of Vision 2016.The event attracted more than 60 stakeholders, including senior representatives from the Office of the President, Ministries of Local Government and Rural Development, Ministry of Education and Skills Development, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Labor and Home Affairs, Statistics Botswana, development partners, NGOs and academia. The launch served as an excellent platform to share the assessment findings and reflect on possible ways to further strengthen and modernize the social protection system for the benefit of Botswan Show Less -

Bamako, September 9, 2013 – An emergency social safety net program known as “Jigiséméjiri” (“Tree of Hope” in the Bambara language) will provide 62,000 households in Mali with a monthly cash transfer of... Show More + 10,000 CFA francs (approximately US$20) for three consecutive years.Financed by a US$70 million grant from the International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank’s fund for the poorest, Jigiséméjiri will provide critical financial assistance to the poorest households as Mali begins to recover from a serious political and security crisis.“Now that Mali has a new government at the helm and has embarked on the reconstruction process, the Tree of Hope project will help ensure that the most vulnerable families have enough resources to survive while the country rebuilds the economy,” said Ousmane Diagana, World Bank country director for Mali. “The crisis created new challenges in both northern and southern Mali. Against this backdrop, we gave priority to supporting Mali through progr Show Less -

Evidence has shown that households often cope with increases in energy prices by cutting down on other types of basic consumption, such as food or health spending. However, by supplementing these price... Show More + hikes with improvements in social assistance programs – especially those that target the poorest and most vulnerable – while simultaneously investing in energy efficiency, countries around the region can save as much as 1 percent of Gross Domestic Product without burdening poor households.An important step in this process is the consolidation of social assistance programs through the introduction of an integrated system of measures that provide support to the poorer groups while also offering incentives for all households to manage their energy consumption more effectively. According to the report, this system should be anchored by three main pillars:continuing reforms to ensure that social assistance programs are more effective at reaching the poorest;integrating demand management polic Show Less -

Argentina, before and after 2001The study developed by Nora Lustig, Luis F. López-Calva y Eduardo Ortiz-Juarez analyzes the Argentinean situation before and after the 2001 crisis. According to the... Show More + Socio-Economic Database for Latin America and the Caribbean (SEDLAC) between 1992 and 2002, Argentina registered an increase of the Gini index that went from 0.450 to 0.533, mostly because the gap between skilled and low-skilled workers rose and the labor unions suffered a weakening due to the wave of privatizations, dollarization and commercial liberalization during this period.More than ten years have passed after the crisis, and thanks to the economic growth of these years, the Gini fell to 0.442 in 2010. The study points out that “the reduction in inequality accounted for 40 and 50 percent of the decline in extreme and moderate poverty, respectively”.Thanks to an extremely successful economic period – 8% annual growth rate after 2003, with the exception of 2009 due to the globa Show Less -

Cell phones discourage fraudOriginally, social assistance payments were delivered through money orders, but many clients complained that post office officials were demanding bribes before handing over... Show More + BISP payments, says a BISP official based at its headquarters in Islamabad.To bring efficiency and transparency through modern technology, it was decided to try this new system in five urban districts where cell connectivity is most reliable. A cell company partner offered free handsets. Elsewhere, other beneficiaries are receiving bank debit cards to collect their payments through any automatic teller machine or point of sale at the partner Bank’s agent network.The female representatives of beneficiary families are given the payments and phones in a conscious effort to improve household welfare, encourage female empowerment, promote financial literacy, and discourage fraud, says BISP.BISP clients must bring their national identity cards and have their thumbprints checked against the nati Show Less -

Washington, May 11, 2012– The burden of traffic accidents continues to be a missing link for development in Latin America. With 130,000 people killed and six million injured annually, Latin America must... Show More + mourn the loss of human lives on its highways more than any other region.Over the past year the Ibero-American Road Safety Observatory (OISEVI) has been building bridges between different countries within the region to share knowledge and also develop a solid database on which to establish efficient public policies. With this they have developed the first Ibero-American database on accidents, which is now available on the OISEVI website."The OISEVI can collaborate in transferring successful road safety efforts from other countries so that Ibero-American countries can adopt them more quickly and effectively,” said OISEVI Technical Secretary Ana Ferrer.This ambitious project is framed within the United Nation’s Decade of Action for Road Safety. It became a reality thanks to the effor Show Less -

The idea was hatched to distribute mobile phones that surveyors could call or text on a regular basis to ask questions, 10 during each interview, about employment, violence, hunger, illness and access... Show More + to social services. Cell phone coverage in Latin America is almost ubiquitous, which made the region a promising experimental ground.After initial on-the-ground tests in Nicaragua and Peru in 2010, Ballivian’s team contracted with the Gallup organization to conduct a six-month pilot study in Peru and Honduras that began in October 2011 and January 2012, respectively. Brightstar, a distributor for the wireless phone industry, donated 1,000 phones that were given to families that needed a phone to participate.Gallup is running monthly surveys of 1,500 households and so far, the project has yielded some interesting findings.While incentives such as free airtime appear to boost public interest in the mobile phone surveys, for example, the level of incentive (more versus less free airtime) has Show Less -

“So what you need in my opinion…is some kind of fiscal policy coordination in the management of global inequality, realizing that for a single country in today’s globalized world hands are tied about what... Show More + you can do and how much you can do,” Basu said.Andrea Brandolini, head of the Economic Structure and Labour Market Division in the Bank of Italy, was not convinced. “Europe is proving that coordinating efforts is very hard,” he said, referring to the recent struggle over economic policy within the European Union.Nordic countries no longer shineIn the 1990s, Finland showed that a country can remain relatively fair also amid rapidly rising unemployment with the help of safety nets and welfare programs that sustain incomes for those who lose their jobs, Brandolini said.The gradual dismantling of the Nordic welfare states has changed that equation, he said, and now the Gini score – the measure economists use to gauge inequality – is climbing in countries such as Finland and Sweden as low- Show Less -

April 21, 2012 - The World Bank won support from member countries for a plan to boost its work on “efficient and fiscally sound” social safety nets, said President Robert B. Zoellick at the close of the... Show More + World Bank-International Monetary Fund Spring Meetings in Washington.“At international meetings, we talk a lot about the global financial safety nets. We need to focus equal attention on the human safety nets,” said Zoellick at a Development Committee press briefing Saturday. “As we know, there are dangers when institutions are too big to fail. But let’s remember that beyond the talk of financial systems, of regulations, or of firewalls, it is people who are too important to fail.”“Social protection makes sound development sense,” said an April 21 communiqué of the Development Committee, made up of the boards of governors of the World Bank and IMF. “Social safety nets bolstered poor people’s resilience to the last financial crisis and are also an important component of longer-term pover Show Less -

The Mexican government, meanwhile, has managed to transform its once-disjoined monitoring and evaluation efforts into a single system modeled after successful programs in other countries. The new system,... Show More + managed by the Evaluation and Transparency Unit within the Mexican Ministry of Finance, is now changing the way programs are run throughout the federal government.Several important national reforms helped pave way for the system. Perhaps most importantly, the Mexican system is designed to feed performance information directly to the finance ministry’s Budgeting Policy and Control Unit. This lets the government use performance information in budgeting decisions.“But it’s not about giving more pesos to well-performing programs and less to poorly performing programs,” noted Nicolas Kubli, head of the Budgeting Policy and Control Unit. “We tend to look at the program and to make more detailed evaluations so we can allocate the resources that it needs. There are cases where programs h Show Less -